New extension: New (and only) "Vault" tab - Pros, Cons, Differences, Improvements?!

Ask the Community Password Manager
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This is not an official Bitwarden post - I’m just another normal Bitwarden user who wanted to get this a bit more clear - for myself and for all of us!

With the browser extension “UI/UX refresh” update, a big part of the general structure got also a change: we went from 5 tabs (Tab, Vault, Generator, Send, Settings) to now 4 tabs (Vault, Generator, Send, Settings) - i.e. the former “Tab” tab and the former “Vault” tab got merged into one “Vault” tab.

I would like to collect some pros and cons of that solution of the new extension with the idea, to “generate” further ideas for improvement.

It will be a bit longer as I will try to “analyse” or at least compare the old structure and the new structure first, so please read on and add everything I didn’t think of, so that we get many ideas how to get a better “Vault” tab (maybe Bitwarden developers read along - or it may lead to feature requests).

 

So, here is how it was with the old extension (2024.11.2):

BW - comparison tabs (tab v vaul) - old extension (2024.11.2) - with frame
BW - comparison tabs (tab v vaul) - old extension (2024.11.2) - with frame1416×664 76.4 KB

 
(on the right under “Structure”: the words in brackets indicate the action by clicking it, e.g. clicking “Favorites” led to “View that item”)
 

And here we have the new extension (2024.12.3):

BW - new extension - vault tab structure (with additions)
BW - new extension - vault tab structure (with additions)760×664 48.8 KB

 
(“defined for all apps” = if you define an item as a “favorite”, that is a “global setting” and therefore that item is a “favorite” in all BW apps then)
 

So, what’s different and what’s the same now?

(not everything in detail, but the most important things)
 

  • Auto-fill suggestions: login items → pretty much the same (located at the top of the tab) → the most controversial change is here the behaviour of what should happen with clicking the “item” - and/or the situation with the new auto-fill button (but please leave that discussion aside for a moment, as I want to focus on the tab situation here)
     
  • Auto-fill suggestions: cards & identities → pretty much not the same as before. In the old extension, cards & identities were not in the “suggestions”, but in the “Tab” tab permanently there (as items in their categories) and by clicking on such an item, it would auto-fill (clicking = auto-fill as default) → now, in the new extension, cards & identities are by default only mixed into the list of “All Vault Items” (and then they don’t have the auto-fill-button/-capability!) and/or appear in the “Auto-fill suggestions” (so they get the auto-fill button) list if a match of the current URI works as expected, which doesn’t work very reliable at the moment… furthermore, you can make cards & identities “favorites”, so that they then get attached to the list of the “favorites” permanently (and that in all Bitwarden apps then!)
     
  • Show all types → now available by the new filters at the top (replaces the “types” category in the old “Vault” tab)
     
  • Show a list of all vault items → was not available in the old extension, but is now one of the three main things in the new “Vault” tab
     
  • “Folders” → now available by the new filters at the top (replaces the “folders” category in the old “Vault” tab)
     
  • Cards & Identities → (though also mentioned above for auto-fill, here again for the overview) now by default mixed into the “All Vault Items” list (until you make them favorites - or when they appear in the auto-fill suggestions) → in the old extension, cards and identities were always shown in the “Tab” tab (and they had the “click item to auto-fill functionality”, which they now don’t have in the new extension – I will pick up that point further down again…)
     
  • Favorites → now between the “Auto-fill suggestions” and the “All Vault Items” list → in the old extension, they were in the “Vault” tab at the top - and neither in the old nor in the new extension, “favorites” had/have the “auto-fill” functionality

 

What are the main controversies?

:one: The „All items" view - Main things I’ve heard:
 

  • I don’t need all items to be seen (–> in the sense of “search, choose “types”, go into “folders”… all more efficient / useful than to scroll through all items”)
     
  • I don’t want all items to be seen → because of privacy / security concerns as well as perfomance issues (loading times for all vault items?!)
     
  • but: for those who may worry, that “all items can now (too) easily be accessed” → that hasn’t changed! - It was the same with the old extension before (in the old extension in the “Vault” tab, all items were also accessible - “behind” the folders and in the “unassociated items” list - or by choosing “types” you could view all login items, all cards, all identities, all secure notes…)
     
  • BTW, here are some infos and a short preview (screenshots) of the newly planned collapsible “All Items” view: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitwarden/s/6kv8B3WBrT → PS: And I personally hope, that it is not only possible to collapse the “All items” section, but the “Favorites” and “Auto-Fill suggestions” sections also. And furthermore, I hope, that this then is somewhat persistent, because it would not be very useful, I think, if my choice here get’s resetted with every closing/opening of the extension window, or every lock/unlock of the extension, or every closing/opening of the browser.

 
 
:two: Now, Cards and Identities are not always shown and don’t have “the Fill-button or click item to auto-fill functionality”
 

  • in the old extension, Cards and Identities were always shown in the “Tab” tab (independant of the current website you were on) and had the “click item to auto-fill functionality”, so Cards and Identities have really lost now a big part of their functionality
     
  • actually, there is already a feature request that fits in here: Restore "Show Cards" and "Show Identities" options in browser extension

 
 
:three: “It was easier in the old “Vault” tab to go to “Folders” or “Types” than now with the filters…”
 

 
 
:four: I think not as much recognized as it should be: “Favorites” are much more usable now
 

  • That is maybe more of a personal opinion for now, but you can say if it was true or false for you: I always had the impression with the old extension, that “Favorites” weren’t really useful. They were in the “Vault” tab, so if you used most of the time the “Tab” tab, you had to change tabs first… And then, they didn’t have the “click item to auto-fill functionality”… And they still - in the new extension - don’t have the “Fill”-button or “click item to auto-fill functionality”, but at least they are always schon in the new tab, so that they are at least “within reach” now and can be used in a meaningful way

 

One further suggestion regarding the new tab and the “Fill”-button or “click item to auto-fill functionality”:

  • maybe it would be a good thing to consider, getting some further options, to be able to activate or deactivate having a “Fill”-button (or the old “click item to auto-fill” behaviour as an alternative) for Cards and Identities also (like it was in the old extension), if they “came back” as fixed categories in the “Vault” tab (and that in itself maybe also via an optional setting, so that it could individually be turned on or off) - and maybe for “Favorites” also?!

 

PS:
 

  • The new Fill-button itself may be worth another (separate) discussion…
     
  • I personally don’t think that it is necessarily “bad” to have only one tab now… as I like the general idea to have everything “centralised” in one tab, instead of having two separate tabs that both “do something with vault items”. But obviously that one tab needs some further adjustments / improvements.

 

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… it started with the harmless idea, to get a better overview myself. :sweat_smile:

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Arguments in favor of the prior separation of “Tab” and “Vault” - may be helpful in improving the new “Vault” view.

Used for two different purposes:

Tab showed only items related to the current browser tab, which provided a measure of automatic filtering of only the relevant items. For cases when user already has a tab open to the correct website. The most useful feature from the Tab view is “Fill.”

Vault (especially with Favorites) served as a set of bookmarks for all the sites a user might want to visit that aren’t currently open in a tab. The concept is the same whether using a favorite or searching the vault. The most useful feature from the Tab view is “Launch.”

In either case, user is not typing website addresses into the browser bar. This provides an extra level of security from phishing and bad links. Tab only displays suggestions for sites that match a current vault entry, so limits accidentally filling into a malicious site. Vault (Favorites) is used for launching, which may allow the user the confidence to use auto-fill for some sites.

Sometimes it is necessary for the user to switch between Tab and Vault views, with one easy click. More often than not the extension could just do the right thing by showing Tab when the user is on a browser tab with matching suggestions, and showing the Vault view if there are no matching suggestions or if the user is on a browser-default “new” page.

This entire concept could be considered as “Website Bookmarks and Logins” which is one of the use-cases for a password manager. It’s not the only use case but a very common one.

Identities and Cards could possibly be useful on either tab, depending on the use-case. I actually want there to be some friction, like an extra click required, before filling in Identity or Card info on a site that doesn’t have a matching URI entry in my vault. Auto-fill or accidentally clicking to fill these on the wrong site is one of the threats I want to avoid. For me, and I suspect for most users, filling Identities and Cards to an unmatched site is relatively infrequent. Launch for known websites already in the vault, and Fill for a matching current tab are both much more frequent uses.

My issues with the new extension were not much about font sizes and button sizes and muscle-memory. My issues were that it de-optimized or broke the use-cases that were my primary reasons for using a password manager, in exchange for optimizing use-cases that I don’t care about. Merging the Tab and Vault views into one is a primary example of that problem. There is no amount of tweaking the combined view, adding expand/collapse tools, re-ordering the items that is as a good as two separate views for my use-cases.

A single view still needs the ability to easily toggle between what applies to the current tab and what doesn’t match the current tab, or it needs to automatically detect which is more relevant and sort that to the top. It seems easier to support the two view for Tab and Vault, then provide a user setting that allows merging all into the Vault tab for the users that prefer that.

I understand that some people prefer the merger of Tab and Vault views for how they use the extension. I find it completely unusable for my preferred workflows.

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Since you wrote a very long post that made some very important points, I would like to highlight what I consider to be the most detrimental flaw if the current design:

A fairly large number of users do use Bitwarden’s browser extension as a bookmark manager. In fact, for someone who routinely autofills using the keyboard shortcut (or other methods that don’t require opening the extension), the main reason to open the browser extension popup is to search for a site and launch it.

For this common use-case, the work flow is now significantly degraded.

One must now scroll past all of the “Autofill Suggestions” and Favorites (or type a much longer search expression to narrow the results) to access the launch icon for a site that one wishes to open, which makes the user experience much more inefficient and unpleasant.

My suggestion would be to either restore a separate tab for search results, or to simply disable/hide the “Autofill Suggestions” and “Favorites” areas when displaying search results on the new, unified “Vault” page.

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@grb So, you mean by “bookmark manager” more or less “search an item and launch the website”?

PS: That may be a new feature request which could also improve that function: Search results should be above Autofill Suggestions

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@mtaylor Thanks for you detailed description!

That’s exactly the kind of thing I wanted to discuss here!

But did it? I think only regarding login items. All cards and all identities were always shown in the “Tab” tab, regardless of the current tab. (PS: Okay, also the old extension had the options, to also show cards and identities as auto-fill suggestions - but the categories “cards” and “identities” were independently of that always there)

Okay, so (old extension) the Favorites and the search were the “bookmark function” for you? And I guess the most useful of the “Vault” tab is “Launch”?!

Yes, interesting… I always found it impractical to change between the tabs. But if I understand you correctly, you can do still the same now with the favorites, or can’t you? (launch from the favorites and auto-fill from auto-fill suggestions still is both there)

BTW, a function “Launch and Auto-fill” would be nice. (probably with a short delay, giving time for loading the site) Or at least: an optional setting: after a “launch” action, the extension window should stay to be able to auto-fill directly after that, without having to open the extension window again (but, as I wrote, probably as an optional setting, because if you mainly open sites and only seldom login directy, it is still better if the extension window closes after “launch”)

Can you please elaborate a bit more on that? Would be interesting to know what exactly is now worse in the flow etc. (beside the points you already explained)

I think I don’t quite understand that. Isn’t that even easier now than before? - Now: everything in the auto-fill suggestions (login items, cards, identities) is related to the current tab. The Favorites and All Items are not. Period. - With the old extension: only the first section of the “Tab” tab showed auto-fill suggestions (by option also cards and identities) = was related to the current website, but the categories “cards” and “identities” in the same “Tab” tab were not related to the current website.

Honestly, isn’t it even a bit easier now to see what is related to the current website??

As I wrote in my OP, I think I like the idea of centralizing everything in one tab. But I’m not religious about it. If there were serious reasons, that can’t be overcome, I would vehemently be for a separation in two tabs again. :wink:

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No, it is not. If the primary use of the extension UI is as a bookmark manager, then, by definition, the most relevant vault items are those that are not matched to the current website (because the user’s intent is to launch a different website). Therefore, having the “Autofill Suggestions” at the top of the search results is always counterproductive.

The same can be said about the “Favorites” section. Although the “Favorites” section can be used for collecting the most frequently used bookmarks in one place, a user who is doing a search would only resort to doing so if the website they wish to access is not in the “Favorites” section. So placing the “Favorites” section above the relevant search results is also counterproductive.

All of this is exacerbated by the need (in the new UI) to fill up the “Favorites” section with Card and Identity items as a work-around for the broken display of Cards & Identities on the Vault page.

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@grb Though I accept (and agree to) your whole argument :+1: - I don’t think it is that much related to the question whether you can identify what is related to the current website in the new “Vault” tab.

Instead, you opened my eyes why the search function is another construction site (and the view of the results is overloaded and confusing) - but you don’t “search” for the current website. :wink:

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The Tab view showed usernames / passwords related to the current tab first, at the top of the view. This was logical because those were the most likely actions. Cards and Identities were further down, but still readily available because there would only be a few matching login items. The rest of the Vault wasn’t shown on the Tab view.

Favorites were available at the top of the Vault view. Other users have reported not using Favorites, but using the Folders of the Vault for a similar organizational purpose.

What is worse in the workflow:
Previously, the extension seemed most often to open to the last-used view, which was probably what the user needed based on their preferred workflow. If the wrong view opened, there was a single predictable click to get to the other view. In the current merged view (without or with the proposed enhancements) there is too much information to view without scrolling or collapse/expand. If the desired info is not visible in the view, a series of collapse/expand/scroll actions are required. Then if the next use calls for a different view, those actions must be reversed. In comparison, the original UI either had the needed info in the view without scrolling, or could switch to a different view that had the needed info visible with one click.

The scrolling and expand / collapse may be reasonable for a full-screen application. For a browser extension the user does not want to be looking for scroll-bars or clicking on expand / collapse buttons in unpredictable positions. The goal should be to provide just the info needed for the current task, while minimizing the interaction required. Clicking one button in a known location is not disruptive. Scrolling a view to look for information, expand / collapse sections within a scrolling view, is a context switch. The user stops using the browser and starts using the password manager like a separate application, instead of as an intuitive browser extension.

“Everything in one view” was intended to make things easier, but it is the exact opposite of “only show the user what they are interested in.” Whether there are vault items matching the current browser tabs, or whether the user searched, are the context hints telling the extension what the user is interested in seeing.

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Agree with both of these points - Putting everything in one Vault view, undistinguished by the context of what the user is doing, is counterproductive. The filtering and the sorting of the view needs to be be dynamic based on the context. Or, separate views so the user can choose their own context.

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If one has many favorites, it can be useful to search within them.

When searching, non-matching items are removed from the auto-fill section, removed from the favorites section and removed from the all-items section. And when a section becomes empty, it is not displayed at all.

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Maybe so, but I hadn’t perceived this thread as being focused on the specific question that you have articulated above.

If one has so many “favorite” items that a search is required, it can be argued that these items are not really “favorites” in any meaningful sense of the term.

I think that you’ve maybe put your finger on one big issue with the new design. An ideal browser extension should be optimized to minimize the need for scrolling first, and to minimize the need for mouse-clicks, second. Therefore, the decision to put many disparate functions on the same browser extension page (the unified Vault page) necessarily increases the amount of scrolling and clicking required. Having many tabs will make more efficient use of space (requiring less scrolling), while requiring only a single click on a navigation bar (furthermore, in some cases — like searching — the browser extension could automatically switch to the relevant view).

Unfortunately, the navigation bar in the browser extension is severely hamstrung by being constrained to look like the mobile app navbar (which is designed for navigation by thumb, something that is completely irrelevant to the browser extension). As demonstrated by @nematode in 2021, it is possible to comfortably fit around 8 navigation icons in a navigation bar optimized for use with a mouse. Therefore, there was no need to reduce the number of navigation icons from 5 to 4.

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Currently, it is mainly useful to provide a work-around for accessing Card and Identity items…

If it wasn’t needed for this purpose (and if the “Autofill Suggestions” area didn’t get in the way), the “Favorites” section could be used to store one’s most frequently used bookmarks. Thus, if one has a handful of sites bookmarked as favorites, this would allow the sites to be launched with two clicks (or only one click, if the browser extension window didn’t close on launch).

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Could you please help me to understand that better?

The scrolling aspect, I accept. One tab with everything in it (some may call it “crowded”), leads to increased scrolling comparing to two tabs distributing certain items or categories of items.

But the clicking aspect… changing between tabs also produces clicks.

Reaching folders: in the old extension, you possibly also had to click twice (as now with “filters” → folder), as you had to click to get from the “Tab” tab to the “Vault” tab first, then scroll down, then click again to open the folder.

So, I’m not so sure if we really have that more clicking now… (at least for my example with folders - same would be for reaching “types” I guess… but of course, I didn’t analyze everything now… and not very scientific as well…) :thinking:

It would have indeed been really nice, if we knew the real reasoning for many of the key and/or (more) controversial changes… :roll_eyes: (not necessarily an answer to what I quoted from you… but that paragraph of yours reminded me of - it would be helpful to know the “why?” here and there)

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First, I think that I have already explained the example of viewing items in a folder, if that folder also contains one or more subfolders (this requires an extra click on “View items in <folderName>” in the new UI).

Second, to mitigate the inefficient use of space in the new UI, it is necessary to hide the vault filters. Therefore, an extra click is required to make the vault filters visible (before one can open a folder).

Third, upcoming changes that will implement collapsible sections (again, something that is now required because there is too much information on a single page in the new UI) will again require extra clicks to expand or collapse the sections.

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Thanks for that summary, explaining it again. Hm, that’s right… But that’s also assuming using all these three things (PS: of course not literally - you could be using only two or one of those “things”) - nested folders, hiding the vault filters and collapsing the sections.

(BTW, I think I read on Reddit, that the collapsible sections will come for now for “All items” and “Favorites”)

Depending on how often you use e.g. the filters, hiding and unhiding them frequently could become more inconvenient. :thinking:

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Any one of those will increase the number of clicks, and with the exception of the nested folders use-case, these assumptions are not improbable. Regardless, the increased need to scroll is a more serious issue (than the increased number of clicks).

And then we have the separate (but not unrelated) issue of card and identity items. The Cards and Identities sections have now been eliminated from the unified Vault view (again, because there is too much information for a single page). As a result, 4–5 clicks are now necessary (instead of a single click) to autofill most cards and identities.

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Yeah, you’re probably right (that that’s the main reason). And I can imagine, the “hope” was, that the automatic detection of fields would work better as it does now?! :roll_eyes: